20 Stunning New Allegations In Colts Neck Caneiro Murder Case

COLTS NECK, NJ — New allegations were revealed Monday when the Monmouth County prosecutor's office unsealed the long-sought affidavit in the Caneiro family murders, a brother-vs.-brother homicide that rocked bucolic Colts Neck horse country this past fall.

The devastating murder took place Nov. 20, 2018, the Tuesday morning just before Thanksgiving day. The bodies of Keith Caneiro, 50, his wife, Jennifer, 45, and their two children, Jesse, 11, and Sophia, 8, were found murdered inside their palatial Colts Neck estate at 15 Willow Brook Road; the home was then set on fire.

Prosecutors say Keith's older brother, Paul, 51, fatally shot his brother on the front lawn, and then brutally stabbed the wife and children to death inside the house, slashing their bodies multiple times. He then allegedly set the home on fire; the wife and children's bodies were reportedly charred beyond recognition when they were found. Police say Paul then set fire to his own home in Ocean Township, while his wife and daughters were sleeping inside, allegedly as a ruse to make detectives think he was being targeted as well.

Back in November, all prosecutors would say was that the motive was "financial" in nature, and that they were doing a deep dive into the two Asbury Park-based businesses the Caneiro brothers owned together, SquareOne technology firm and Eco-Star PM, a pest extermination company.

Now on Monday, the Monmouth County prosecutor unsealed the affidavit of probable cause in the Caneiro murder case. An affidavit is a sworn statement by law enforcement officers.

Here are the allegations cited in the affidavit:

1. Paul Caneiro allegedly stole $78,000 from Keith and Jennifer Caneiro. He stole the money sometime between January 2017 and the day of the murders.

2. The first police response of that day was at 5:01 a.m., when police responded to a 911 call that Paul's Ocean Twp. home (27 Tilton Drive) was on fire. When police got to the scene, they discovered Paul, his wife, Susan, and their two daughters, in their 20s, sitting in the car outside the home. The rear of the home was on fire, and there was a small fire at the garage door. Investigators noticed Paul's white Porsche Macan, parked in the driveway, had brown staining on the hood, "indicative of likely spot pour burn patterns."

3. A red-colored gasoline can was found sitting in the driveway, near the Porsche. A charred rubber glove was also located on the ground in front of the Porsche.

4. Three more identical red gasoline cans were found in a shed behind the home. They were all sitting in a row, with a space in between, indicating a fourth gasoline can had been removed from the row. Similar rubber gloves were also found in the shed.

5. The home had exterior surveillance cameras set up, but Paul told police he turned them off because he thought "they were slowing down his WiFi." The last recorded activity was Nov. 20, 2018 at 1:28 a.m. A review of that footage showed Paul walking into the garage and turning off the cameras. The cameras were later found to be hard-wired, and not connected to the Internet/WiFi at all.

6. Two butane lighters were located inside the home, one on a small table in the living room, just inside the front door, and another on the living room floor.

7. When interviewed, Susan told police that she and her husband were sleeping in separate bedrooms, due to marital difficulties. She also said she had never known her husband to turn off the home's security cameras before.

8. Police then reviewed footage from a neighbor's security camera: That camera showed a white Posche SUV leaving the Tilton Drive home at 2:08 a.m. that day. The camera showed it returning at 4:08 a.m. that same night.

9. K9s dogs were then brought to the Tilton Drive fire to search for accelerants: The dogs made several hits. They found an unspecified fire accelerant on the outside of the basement window, as well as near the garage door, under the garage door and inside the trunk of the aforementioned partially burned Porsche Macan.

10. A judge issued a search warrant to search Paul Caneiro's three other cars, parked at the home at the time: In one of them, a Porsche Cayenne, police said they found a backpack containing a laptop, Paul's passport, a 9 mm barrel of a Sig Sauer firearm, accessories believed to muzzle the sound and flash of the gun, plus a night vision accessory that attached to the gun.

11. A large gun safe is found inside the garage at 27 Tilton Drive, where Paul had multiple firearms registered to him. Even more firearms are found in the basement of the home. Ammunition identified as Fiocchi 9 mm, bearing the stamp GFL 10 9X19, is found in the basement.

12. At 12:38 p.m. that same day, a neighbor calls 911 to report that 15 Willow Brook Road in Colts Neck is on fire. Police find the body of Keith Caneiro, shot several times, lying on the front lawn. Shell cases are found by his body. Those shell casings are also Fiocchi 9 mm, bearing the stamp GFL 10 9X19. Keith had been shot once in the lower back, and four times in the head.

13. Inside the home, investigators find a somber, grisly scene: The body of Jesse Caneiro, 11, was found lying on the kitchen floor. The boy had been stabbed multiple times. The body of Sophia Caneiro, 8, was on the landing of the stairs leading up to the second floor, also stabbed multiple times. Mother Jennifer Caneiro's body was found on the stairs leading up from the basement. She had been shot once in the head and stabbed multiple times in the torso. Police previously said Caneiro started a "slow-burn fire" in the basement of the home, one that would slowly smolder for hours before becoming big enough to be noticed by neighbors.

14. A knife is found at the Colts Neck home. A swab was taken from it and Sophia's blood was later determined to be on it.

15. Detectives pull all of the area's 911 calls made that night: They learned that at 3:33 a.m. on Nov. 20, a neighbor 3.5 miles away said he heard what sounded like five gunshots coming from the area of Laird Road and Phalanx Road. He called 911 at the time to report it. Colts Neck police responded but found nothing. Police also canvass residents on Willow Brook Road: A woman who lives nearby told police she couldn't sleep that night and heard five loud "cracks" that sounded like gunshots, followed by a single gunshot. The woman said she recognized the sound of gunshots because there are often deer hunters in that area. She said she remembered the time as 3:10 a.m. because it was displayed on her cable box.

16. In the days after this case, detectives were contacted by the woman who is married to the third Caneiro brother, Corey, 44. She said when the murders occurred, her husband drove their children to Pennsylvania out of concern for their safety; he remained there, but wished to speak with detectives. Detectives drove to Pennsylvania to meet with him.

17. Corey revealed that at 6:58 p.m. on Nov. 19, the night before he was killed, Keith forwarded an email to him that he had sent to two business associates. In the email, Keith said he discovered money missing from the two businesses the brothers ran together, presumably the aforementioned $78,000. Keith said he would be discontinuing payments made in the name of Paul's wife, Susan, until he could locate the missing money. The money was paid to Paul's wife because he was classified as disabled due to a prior car accident. Corey also told police Keith had confided in him he was frustrated with Paul and the amount of money Paul spent from their business accounts. Keith had also told him he wanted to sell one of the businesses.

18. Keith was the primary owner of SquareOne, with a 90 percent share and Paul owning 10 percent. The brothers owned the extermination business equally. The office manager for both businesses also said Keith had confided in her that he was angry Paul was withdrawing so much. In the past year, Keith had also directed her to suspend payments to Paul's wife because of arguments over the money, she said.

19. On Nov. 23, a police cadaver dog did a second search of 27 Tilton Drive: The dog found a plastic container hidden in the basement of the home. Inside were a pair of jeans and a latex glove, with red stains consistent with blood. An unspent 9 mm bullet, bearing stamp GFL 10 9X19, was found folded in those clothes.

20. On Nov. 27, lab tests came back: Sophia Caneiro's blood matched the blood found on those jeans and the latex glove.

Paul Caneiro was indicted this Monday morning, Feb. 25, by a sitting Monmouth County grand jury, on 16 counts including murder, felony murder, arson and theft. Those charges were doubled from November, when he was initially only charged with eight counts. Felony murder and theft are the new charges that have been added.

If found guilty, Caneiro is facing life in prison. Each murder charge carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment without parole. Felony murder also carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, subject to the "No Early Release Act." Aggravated arson carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. If convicted, Caneiro will essentially remain in jail until the day he dies.

Monmouth County prosecutor Chris Gramiccioni has previously said he wished he could pursue the death penalty in this case, but noted that New Jersey has effectively outlawed capital punishment.

"If that was a possible sentence in the state of New Jersey, I would have certified this as a capital case," the county prosecutor said in November. "This is one of the most brutal cases that I've ever seen. We won't stop until we bring justice in the name of Keith Caneiro and his entire family."

It is not common for New Jersey law enforcement to release affidavits; prosecutors rarely do it. But due to the intense media coverage of these murders, Gramiccioni promised the press last November he would release the affidavit of probable cause only after a grand jury indicted Paul Caneiro. A grand jury did just that Monday morning.

Paul has remained in the Monmouth County jail since he was arrested; his lawyers waived a bail hearing. His trial likely won't start until 2020, the county prosecutor said. His lawyers maintain he is innocent.

"Today we received a copy of the indictment regarding our client Paul Caneiro," said Ansell Grimm & Aaron attorneys Bob Honecker, Jr. and Mitchell Ansell, who are representing Paul Caneiro. "We are in the process of reviewing the indictment with our client. Under the court rules, we now have access for the first time to all of the state’s evidence in this matter, which they believe supports their theory of the case."

This previous Patch article delves into the complicated relationship between Paul and Keith, two brothers who by all accounts grew up extremely close in working-class Brooklyn and Staten Island.

But in their later years, baby brother Keith — a Columbia business school grad, a self-made entrepreneur with a beautiful wife — appeared to be distancing himself from his older brother.

All three Caneiro brothers left gritty New York for wealthy, rural Monmouth County: Paul to a suburban cul-de-sac in Ocean Township and Keith to a $1.5-million modern home on ten acres in rolling Colts Neck horse country. The third Caneiro brother lives in Fair Haven.

It was Keith who started SquareOne. In his early 20s, he took a job as a janitor at a computer shop in Brooklyn, and told the manager the only payment he wanted was to take the computer manuals home at night. By the time the '90s Internet boom happened, Keith was in the exact right spot at the right time: His small company landed a contract outfitting all of CitiBank's computers nationwide, and was at one point making $5.5 million a year, according to NJ.com.

Keith brought on big brother Paul to help him. In fact, it was while working for CitiBank in the early '90s that an employee at CitiBank's Chicago office said he first noticed Paul's temper: He said in this Patch article that he and Paul were alone in the downtown offices late one night and Paul threatened to kill him after he teased Paul about his slowness getting the network online.

That same NJ.com report found that SquareOne today is also a shell of its former self, with only one client remaining.

Keith had recently gone back to school, determined to get his college degree. But he didn't stop at just undergrad: He earned an undergraduate degree from Columbia University in 2014, and then his MBA from Columbia, specializing in IT management, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Brian Bott, the owner of Aspire Fitness, the Colts Neck gym where Keith loved to work out, told FOX News that Keith was excited about his future. A classmate of his in the Columbia master's program, Ameet Chaudhury, told the New York Times that Keith's goal after getting his MBA was to become the chief technology officer for a Fortune 500 company.

"He would just mention it to everyone," Chaudhury said. "He wanted to try something different."

In fact, in the weeks before he died, Keith had been going on job interviews. He was preparing to leave behind, and possibly sell, the technology firm he had started, the company that had supplied his brother with a job, an identity — and an income — for years.

Paul, meanwhile, was struggling: About five years ago, he was seriously injured in a car accident, a family friend told the New York Times. He's undergone several surgeries for the constant pain. In fact, when he walked with a slight limp into Monmouth County Superior Court for his arraignment last fall, it was due to chronic back pain, his lawyers said.

"He was never, never the same person after he got in that accident," family friend, Demetris Potamianos, told FOX News. "It was bad. It was bad for a very long time."

Worth a read:

Motive Was Financial In Colts Neck Murders, Prosecutor Says

Picture Emerges Of One Caneiro Brother Thriving, Another In Pain: A picture emerges of two brothers who grew up extremely close in Brooklyn and Staten Island, but may have been growing apart in adulthood.

Former Colleague Says Paul Canerio Threatened Him At Previous Job: A former IT consultant for CitiBank says he had a run-in with accused Colts Neck murderer Paul Caneiro, and it wasn't pleasant.